Sr Staff/Principal Platform Engineer

Job Opportunity: Senior Staff / Principal Platform Engineer Kubernetes & Cloud Infrastructure

Job Title: Senior Staff Platform Engineer / Principal Platform Engineer



Location: Morrisville, North Carolina (Remote)



Employment Type: Contract



Experience: 12+ Years

Position Overview

We are seeking a highly experienced Senior Staff / Principal Platform Engineer to lead the architecture, development, and evolution of a large-scale Kubernetes-based cloud infrastructure platform.

The ideal candidate will bring deep, hands-on Kubernetes engineering expertise, strong software development capabilities, and a proven track record of designing scalable, reliable, and secure cloud-native infrastructure.

This is a senior technical leadership role focused on engineering and extending Kubernetes capabilities , rather than traditional cluster administration or routine DevOps operations.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the architecture, design, development, and continuous improvement of enterprise-scale Kubernetes platforms.

• Design, develop, and maintain custom Kubernetes controllers, operators, and admission webhooks to extend Kubernetes functionality.

• Build scalable, secure, and highly available cloud infrastructure solutions across AWS, Azure, or GCP.

• Develop automation and platform engineering solutions to improve infrastructure efficiency, reliability, and developer productivity.

• Drive technical strategy and architectural decisions for large-scale, cross-functional infrastructure initiatives.

• Collaborate with engineering, infrastructure, security, and product teams to deliver consistent platform capabilities.

• Identify opportunities to optimize cloud infrastructure performance, operational efficiency, and costs.

• Establish engineering standards, architectural best practices, and platform reliability guidelines.

• Mentor engineers, provide technical guidance, and support complex engineering initiatives.

• Contribute to long-term technology roadmaps and drive the successful delivery of strategic platform projects.

Required Qualifications & Technical Skills

Kubernetes Engineering

• Expert-level, hands-on experience with Kubernetes architecture, internals, and cloud-native infrastructure.

• Proven experience developing custom Kubernetes controllers and operators .

• Hands-on experience designing and implementing Kubernetes admission webhooks .

• Strong understanding of Kubernetes APIs, resource management, orchestration, and automation.

• Experience building, extending, and operating Kubernetes platforms in production environments.

Cloud Infrastructure

• 4+ years of experience with at least one major cloud platform: AWS, Azure, or GCP .

• Strong knowledge of cloud infrastructure services, compute, networking, security, and storage.

• Experience designing scalable, highly available, and fault-tolerant cloud infrastructure.

• Understanding of infrastructure automation and cloud-native architectural principles.

Software & Platform Engineering

• Strong software engineering fundamentals and experience developing production-grade infrastructure solutions.

• Experience designing and building internal platforms, infrastructure automation, or Kubernetes-native services.

• Ability to troubleshoot complex distributed systems and infrastructure challenges.

• Strong understanding of platform scalability, reliability, performance, and security.

Technical Leadership

• Proven experience owning complex technical initiatives from architecture through implementation and production operations.

• Ability to define technical strategies, influence architectural decisions, and drive cross-team engineering initiatives.

• Experience mentoring engineers and collaborating with geographically distributed teams.

• Strong communication, problem-solving, and stakeholder management skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Advanced programming experience with Golang (Go) .

• Experience developing Kubernetes controllers using frameworks such as Kubebuilder or controller-runtime.

• Hands-on experience with Istio, Envoy, or service mesh technologies .

• Experience working in cloud-native, DevOps, or infrastructure-focused technology organizations.

• Experience supporting large-scale, multi-cloud Kubernetes environments.

• Strong knowledge of cloud cost optimization, platform security, and developer experience improvements.

Important Technical Expectation

This position requires genuine Kubernetes engineering and development expertise.

Candidates should have direct experience building or extending Kubernetes functionality, particularly through custom controller development and admission webhook implementation .

Experience limited to Kubernetes cluster administration, deployment management, monitoring, Helm, Terraform, or dashboard-based operations will not be sufficient for this position.

Education

Bachelor's, Master's, or PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical discipline, or equivalent professional experience.